A New Reality
by EchoInTheSilence
Summary: They say that man plans, and God laughs. A case calls into question one of the few things Zach Nichols had always taken for granted. And maybe, just maybe, that's not altogether a bad thing. (No pairings, just friendship across the board.)
1. No Leads

**A New Reality**

**This story is rated T for mention of violence and child abuse. Don't like it, don't read it.**

**This story takes place within the series beginning with ****_Close to Home_****, on a roughly parallel track with ****_Unreasonable Doubt_****. You don't need to have read the earlier stories to understand this one, but I recommend it, as I may very well be merging those tracks in future stories.**

**Chapter 1: No Leads**

"No witnesses this time."

"Well, thank God for that, anyway."

Under any other circumstances, Zach Nichols thought, his partner's reaction to the officer's statement would have been puzzling at least. But here, he understood. Because with this killer, witnesses weren't live people who could tell the detectives what happened. With this killer, witnesses became victims.

They'd caught the first case in this string two months earlier. A woman in her thirties, strangled to death, stripped naked and posed face-up in an isolated area of a city park, a ribbon tied around her neck over the mark from the cord used to strangle her, and a single red rose laid across her breasts. There had been talk of calling in Special Victims, but it had been deemed a Major Case instead when the ME had determined that, as unlikely as it was considering the way the body had been displayed, the victim hadn't been raped.

Two weeks later, as they were still spinning their wheels on that one, the second body had turned up in another park. Everything about that one had been identical, except that the second victim hadn't been alone. Next to her were two other bodies, an older woman and a man also in his thirties, each killed by a blow to the back of the head, still clothed, apparently lying where they had fallen, their eyes mutilated after death.

It had, rather predictably, been Zach who'd figured it out. The old woman and the man had never been the killer's intended targets. They were witnesses, random people unlucky enough to stumble upon the crime scene, killed just to give the killer a clean getaway.

The woman lying in front of him was the fifteenth victim; this was the eighth scene. And they were still spinning their wheels. The killer's habit of murdering witnesses was sickening, but it was also, apparently, effective. Every lead was a dead end, and it didn't help that the parents of the youngest victim, a teenage boy killed for being a witness, had offered a substantial reward for information leading to the arrest of their son's killer. Any cop could have told them that such an offer would produce a hundred false leads for every genuine one, and the detectives had been forced to spend an inordinate amount of time screening out false witnesses, and they had yet to get a single genuine tip.

Zach finished his investigation of the body - no useful information, same as all the previous bodies - and stood up, slowly walking the perimeter of the scene in case there was anything to notice.

And then he noticed something.

It was something most people would have missed, but Zach Nichols was not most people. He reached his gloved hand out, capturing that which had caught his eye.

"What is it?" His partner had come up behind him while he was distracted. "You have something?"

"Maybe. Take a look at this." He opened his hand, showing her a few long strands of black hair. "What do you think, Serena? It doesn't seem like this has been here long."

She carefully lifted the strands from his palm. "No, you're right. They're not weather-beaten at all, and the weather hasn't exactly been kind the last few weeks." She pulled a small bag from her pocket and carefully bagged the strands. "You thinking the killer could've left them?"

"Maybe. Or maybe it's a coincidence. My first thought was a witness, but assuming the witness was sitting somewhere like here -" without further warning, he swung up into the tree, settling himself at a point about four feet off the ground where the branches split into a V.

"No way the killer wouldn't have seen them," Serena finished. "You planning to come down from there?"

He jumped down easily, landing smoothly on the ground beside her. "It's probably unrelated," he agreed, "but it could be something."

"I hope it is," Serena replied. "If it is, it's the biggest something we've gotten so far."

xxxxxxxxx

Serena slammed the desk phone down so hard it was a wonder she didn't break the unit. Her partner looked up in interest. "What is it now?"

"Even kids are getting in on this false tip business," she grumbled. "You saw there was an elementary school a couple blocks from the park where the murder took place? That was a teacher claiming one of her students came to her and said she'd witnessed it."

"Wow." Zach raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you stayed that calm."

She shrugged. "Well, it's not the teacher's fault. I believe that it happened the way she says it did - a student told her they saw a woman murdered in the park, and she felt like she had to report it. Now, that student, on the other hand...he or she is getting a nice long lecture on wasting the police's time with bogus reports."

He smiled. "Of that I have no doubt."

"Come on," she urged. "If I'm stuck dealing with this mess, so are you."

****This chapter is mostly setup, so if you have no idea how this is connected to the story summary, that's okay, you're not supposed to just yet.****

****Regarding Nichols and Stevens still being in Major Case, I know it's fairly common in fan communities to assume that they both left after Season 9. However, I really like Nichols' character, so I fall into the camp that says they stayed but we just didn't see the cases they worked, kind of like how when they were alternating between pairs we didn't see one team in the alternating team's episode (believable as Season 10 contained less than half as many episodes as the others).****

****Please review.****


	2. The Witness

**A New Reality**

**Disclaimer: **If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.

**Chapter 2: The Witness**

Serena shot another scathing look through the glass that divided the principal's private office from the waiting room-type area where they sat with a dozen or so elementary school age children, as if glaring at him might get him to finally hang up his phone and talk to them. "You think he'd put the NYPD ahead of a phone call," she grumbled to her partner. Then she went back to scanning the assembled students, looking for something that might help to determine who was responsible for this colossal waste of time.

Zach was scanning too, trying to get a read on the children. Unfortunately, general reads were unlikely to be of much help here. _All_ the children seemed to be trouble, which made a certain amount of sense, being in a principal's office after all. Although what was the point of sending them down here if no one was going to control them? The kids seemed to be running wild. Even as he watched, one boy who had been practically bouncing off the wall tripped and almost fell on his face.

And then Zach heard a small gasp, almost a whimper of pain. In the next instant, he realized the boy hadn't just tripped, he'd tripped over another child. A child that Zach had somehow, despite his skill, managed to overlook.

The boy hopped back to his feet and scampered off without even apologizing, but Zach's attention was now solely focused on the girl that had been tripped over. She was wearing clothes that were several sizes too big for her, but the detective was used to looking past misleading visuals, and he was sure it wasn't just the size disparity between body and clothes playing with his mind; the girl really was tiny. She couldn't be older than seven or eight, by his reckoning, and at that she'd be small for her age. Her attention was focused on the book she held in her small hands, her only movements the occasional lift of a finger to turn a page. He could almost understand why he'd overlooked her, even as he berated himself for the mistake and even though now he'd noticed her, she had his full attention. She faded into the background, quiet as she was, especially here in the middle of a group of troublemakers. A moment later, he realized what else it was that had been nagging at the back of his mind. The girl had long, black hair. And with that realization, the pieces clicked together with such force that he was momentarily left breathless.

He stood and walked across the room, taking the seat next to her. "It looked like that guy tripped over you pretty hard," he said by way of a conversation starter. "Are you okay?"

She turned her head, and he briefly looked into a huge pair of brown eyes before she broke eye contact to examine him, as if trying to decide what to make of him, her gaze landing on his badge. "Yes, I'm okay, thank you. That happens to me a lot."

"What does?" Zach pressed gently, seeing an opportunity to take the conversation where he needed it to go. "People not realizing you're there?"

She nodded, still studying his badge with an intense level of interest unusual in such a young child. Intrigued, he unclipped it from his jacket. "Here, you want to take a closer look?"

Her eyes widened ever so slightly. "Really?"

"Sure, go ahead." He slipped it into her hand, continuing to speak as she examined it. "You know, a lot of police officers spend a lot of time trying to do that - to be somewhere without anyone realizing, so they can catch people doing bad things. I bet that since people don't always notice you, you've seen people do things they wouldn't do if they knew they were being watched. Haven't you?"

She nodded slowly. "Is that why you're here?" she asked. "Because of the man in the park yesterday?"

And Zach knew his instinct was dead on. "Yes, that's why I'm here." He smiled at her. "What's your name?"

"Andrea. Andrea Marquez."

"I'm Zach. See that woman over there?"

"The other police officer?"

"Yep. That's my partner, Serena. It would really help us if you could tell us what happened with the man in the park. Think you can do that, Andrea?"

"Okay."

A door creaked open and the students suddenly settled down; apparently, the principal had finally finished his call. He turned to Serena. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," he said incredibly insincerely. "As to the matter at hand - ah, it looks like your companion's already met the girl."

Momentarily surprised, she looked over her shoulder to see that her partner was, in fact, in the middle of a conversation with a student. On cue, he stood up, the girl trailing in his footsteps.

"Is there somewhere we could speak to her privately?" he asked.

"Conference room's right through here."

As they walked in, the girl tugged at Zach's sleeve, holding something out to him. A moment later, Serena realized it was his badge. "Here. You can have this back."

He smiled and crouched down to her level, gently wrapping his hand around hers and closing her little fingers around the badge. "Tell you what. How about you hold onto that while we talk, and then you can give it back to me, okay?"

She smiled then, a warm smile that seemed to light up the entire room. "Okay."

He stood back up, walking over to the table and sitting down, indicating for her to do the same. Serena took the seat next to her partner as he spoke. "Serena, this is Andrea. She's going to tell us about something she saw yesterday in the park."

Andrea's hand tightened around the badge as she began to speak. "I went to the park to read - I go there a lot after school, as long as it's not raining or really cold or something. I have a favorite tree and everything," she added. "It's shaped like a V so I can sit in it. So I was sitting there and I heard a car. Then I saw it coming; it was going backwards, and it stopped, and a man got out. Then he opened the back and pulled out a lady. She was wiggling around and trying to scream, but she was tied up with these plastic things around her arms and legs and there was something in her mouth. I was scared, I wanted to run away, but I would have had to climb down from the tree and I thought he might see or hear me, so I just curled up as small as I could and tried to hide behind the branches. He pulled out something shiny, it kind of looked like a metal rope, and he wrapped it around her neck, pulling it tight, and she was moving like she was trying to get away, and then she stopped moving, and he kept pulling for a little bit and then stopped and put the thing back in his car. He took the thing out of her mouth and he took out a knife. First he cut off the plastic things she was tied up with, and then he cut off her clothes. Then he moved her so she was lying on her back with her arms and legs spread out. And he took out this ribbon, a big white ribbon, and he put it around her neck and tied it in a bow, and put a red flower on top of her."

Zach heard Serena gasp and realized, with a moment of regret, that he'd once again failed to stop and explain something to her before charging in headlong. She was only now starting to realize what he'd suspected all along; this wasn't another false witness, a story made up for attention or money. As improbable as it was considering this particular killer's MO, they had a genuine living witness.

Andrea was still talking. "Then he just got in his car and drove away. I guess he didn't see me."

"It's good that he didn't," Zach said gently. "It's good that you hid the way you did. That probably saved your life." He felt an odd pang in his heart at the thought of what could very easily have happened if she hadn't been so smart about the situation or so good at hiding herself. "Can you tell me anything about the car?"

"It was green, and it was one of those cars with a funny shape - I mean, most cars are kind of curvy, you know, but this one was kind of shaped like a box with a car front. Oh, and the license plate was different."

"Different how?" he prompted.

"It was yellow and white with black writing. Most of them are white with dark blue writing."

"Jersey plate," Serena murmured.

"Andrea, this is important," Zach continued. "Do you remember any of the letters or numbers in the writing?"

"A2M," she replied immediately. "At the end, it said A2M. I remember because it's my initials with a number two in the middle, and I'm in second grade. Why is that important?" Then she seemed to shrink back a bit. "I'm sorry. I ask too many questions."

"You don't have to say sorry," Zach told her. "It's a good question. I bet that to you, it seems like license plates are just a bunch of random letters and numbers, right?" She nodded, and he smiled. "Well, you're right. That's exactly what they are, but there's a special little trick. No two license plates have the same numbers. Now, there's a special computer system that the police have that has every single license number in a huge list that says who the car with that license plate number belongs to and what the car looks like. So what we're going to do is put the numbers you gave us in the computer and we'll get a list of all the cars with that number, and then we'll see how many of them look like the one you saw. And then - well, this is where we need your help again."

"What do I have to do?"

"For now, come down to our station and work with one of our artists. You tell them what the man looked like, and they can use that to make a picture of him."

She nodded. "Okay."

"Just wait here right now," Serena interjected, "we need to get permission from the principal and your parents."

"They're not my parents," Andrea corrected softly.

"Sorry, what?"

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I know I'm not supposed to correct grown-ups. But they're not my real parents. I'm in foster care, and my foster parents get mad when people think I'm their real kid. You and Zach seem really nice, so I didn't want them to get mad at you."

"Well, we appreciate that," Serena said, and Zach could tell she was taken aback. "I'll go make those calls, okay?"

xxxxxxxxx

"A real living witness?" ADA Cutter asked incredulously. "I thought this guy didn't leave witnesses."

"He doesn't," Stevens replied. "Not intentionally. This one managed not to be seen."

"I'm convinced she's telling the truth," Nichols added. "And not just because she knew both our hold-backs. It's her demeanor. There's nothing about her to suggest she's deceptive or attention-seeking, and her story rings true."

"She credible?" Cutter asked. "I know, I know," he added quickly, holding up a hand to forestall Nichols' protests. "You believe her. That's not my point. Will a jury believe her? Does she come off as credible to the average citizen? Is there anything in her history we might have to deal with?"

"I wouldn't say that, exactly," Serena said softly. "Her history is pristine; there's just not a whole lot of it." She tipped her head towards the conference room where Andrea sat with the sketch artist.

Cutter looked through the glass and the shock was evident on his face. "How old is she? Six?"

"Eight, as of last month," Nichols replied a little absently.

"She's very forthright," Serena told Cutter. "Honest. I think a jury will like her."

He nodded. "Okay."

"Can you keep her identity under wraps for now?" Nichols asked. "At least until we make an arrest and get a positive ID? This is a guy who kills witnesses. Hannah's already signed off on offering the family protective custody, but the more layers of protection we can give her, the better."

Cutter nodded again. "I can do one better, I think. I should be able to keep her a secret until I have to turn my witness list over to the defense."

"Hey, Stevens!" the desk sergeant called out. "You've got a couple here to see you!"

"Wow, is it five o'clock already?" She glanced at her watch. "I guess it is. That'll be Andrea's foster parents." She glanced over at her partner. "I'll deal with them. You mind getting the girl?"

"No, I've got it." He walked over and tapped on the conference room door. "Hey, you two almost done? Andrea's foster parents are here."

"You tell me." The artist turned the screen to Andrea. "How's this?"

"Yeah, that's him."

"Then I guess we're done."

He took Andrea's tiny hand in his much longer one and helped her to her feet. "I'm afraid I need my badge back, sweetheart." The endearment that slipped from his lips was so out of character as to surprise even him, but it felt right somehow.

"Okay." She immediately handed it over. "I'm sorry I kept it so long."

"Hey, I told you you could. There's nothing to apologize for." He reached into his pocket. "Actually, I have something for you."

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"Of course. Here."

The little souvenir badge pinned to the black wallet would never be mistaken for the real thing, but it was never meant to be. It was meant as something cops could hand out to the public, especially to children. Despite his protestations that he didn't need them, Zach had recieved a few with his badge number on them, and subsequently buried them at the bottom of his desk drawer. He'd used only two so far; one, several years earlier, for a boy they'd brought in after rescuing him from his kidnapper, and the one he now held out to the little girl.

"I can really keep it?"

"Yep." He gently pushed it into her hand. "And take a look at this." He opened one of the card slots. "I put my business card in here, and on the back I wrote my cell phone number. If you get into any trouble, you can call me, okay?" Again, he felt the odd tug at his heart at the thought of what could happen if this dangerous killer got wind that there was a witness he'd missed, a living person who could identify him.

"Okay."

"Come on."

xxxxxxxxx

"Mr. and Mrs. Barker, I'm Detective Stevens."

"What's the girl done now?" the man asked without preamble.

Serena was taken aback for the second time that day. "Witnessed a murder," she replied, matching the man's bluntness.

"She tell you that?" he pressed.

"As a matter of fact, she did."

"You can't take her seriously on that sort of thing," Mrs. Barker replied. "She's a troubled foster child who'd say anything for attention."

_Are we talking about the same girl?_ Out loud, she said only, "we have reason to believe her story is true."

"It better be," the husband grumbled, "making us drive all the way down here."

"Mr. and Mrs. Barker," Serena said, forcing her voice to stay level, "there's something I need to discuss with you. The murder Andrea witnessed was committed by a very violent multiple murderer, and we believe she may be in danger. I've been authorized to offer you protective custody, and I strongly advise you to consider it."

"You mean like witness protection?" the man said disdainfully. "I don't know about you, Detective Stevens, but I like the life and the identity I have. I'm not leaving all that behind over a bunch of supposition."

"It wouldn't be anything so drastic," she said, feeling her distaste mount. "We'd just move your family to a safe house for the duration of the trial. When it's over -"

"How long would that be?" he interrupted. "Weeks, months? You've got some nerve, Detective, thinking we have nothing better to do than sit around in some safe house, waiting for your every whim. We'll stay in our own home, thank you very much."

"Ah," the wife added, "there's the girl now. Come on, Andrea, let's go."

Serena watched as they walked down the hall with Andrea in tow. The moment they were out of sight, she shook her head and sighed audibly. "Some people shouldn't be parents."

"That's what I keep telling you," her partner replied from behind her.

"I don't mean _you_, Zach," she replied. "First of all, we've been over this. Second of all, even if I bought your argument that you'd be a bad parent, which we both know I don't, you wouldn't even rank compared to these two. They acted like everything having to do with their daughter - excuse me, _foster daughter_ - was an inconvenience and a burden. You're the one with the psychology degree, is it true that the opposite of love is apathy?"

"I'd have to say yes. That bad, huh?"

"Yeah. I don't get it. It's bad enough to be apathetic about your biological child, but in this case, it's not like Andrea came to them by happenstance. They had to be certified, jump through all kinds of hoops. Why would anyone do that and then turn around and treat that child like a burden?"

"I don't know," he replied honestly. He had really hoped that the initial impression he'd gotten, based on Andrea's recantation of the distance they enforced by refusing to be called her parents. But based on what Serena was reporting, that impression was dead on. "I take it that's a 'no' on protective custody."

"It's a 'how dare you think we'd lower ourselves to let you dictate our lives', actually." She shook her head. "I honestly couldn't care less what happens to them, but Andrea - I really hope we can get this guy off the street before he figures out he left a witness."

**So, any guesses yet on what basic assumption of Zach's will be questioned? I alluded to it in the chapter, and it's something he mentions casually and repeatedly throughout the two seasons in which he appeared.**

**This chapter references the CI episode **_**Astoria Helen**_**.**

**Please review! I know the last chapter got several hundred reads, but I only got two reviews! And I do actually reply to signed reviews.**


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